The fundraising numbers from last Federal Election Commission (FEC) fundraising quarter for 2016 GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) were so good combined with one week in the previous quarter, he has actually raised more “hard money” than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a new memo from his campaign manager Jeff Roe obtained exclusively by Breitbart News reveals.
“With the release of each presidential campaign’s second quarter fundraising and expenditure data, it is clear the Ted Cruz for President campaign is well positioned against the other candidates,” the Roe memo reads. “Ted Cruz raised more ‘hard money’ than any other Republican in the race, including Jeb Bush; he has built a fundraising infrastructure that will sustain the campaign for the long-term; and he has shown the ability raise money all across the country, receiving donations in nearly half the all the zip codes in America.”
Highlights from Cruz’s fundraising, contained in the next section of the campaign memo, note that Cruz raised $14.3 million total during the full campaign—which is more than any other Republican candidate for the White House—and that he’s reinvested 72 percent of what he’s spent so far on “furthering fundraising efforts.”
Cruz received more than 175,000 donations, and the average contribution was $81. Donors from every state in the nation and five territories backed him, and he has donors in 48 percent of all postal ZIP codes in America. Outside groups backing Cruz have also raised an addition $38 million.
“You don’t just wake up with 175,000 contributions,” Roe wrote.
What we are seeing is a combination of widespread, enthusiastic grassroots support for Ted Cruz coupled with a sophisticated, data-driven fundraising operation. Three months ago, if someone had said Ted Cruz would be beating the field in hard money and second only to Jeb Bush in super PAC money, most of the political chattering class would have never believed you. Yet, here we are with Cruz in the lead and the most well-funded conservative in the race. We know that people are ready for change and ready to support the campaign that represents change. Cruz has said that since the beginning of the campaign and we now have the data to prove it.
That $14.3 million includes totals from both the previous quarter that just ended and the last week of the quarter before that, at the end of which Cruz launched his campaign. In a previous profile on Cruz’s campaign for Breitbart News, Roe detailed how Cruz’s campaign is not following the traditional norms politicians usually work within—breaking rules, if you will—so that’s why he launched his campaign at the end of the year’s first fundraising quarter rather than at the beginning of the subsequent quarter.
“Hard money” in campaigns is the money raised directly by a candidate’s campaign committee. Soft money, so to speak, is money raised by outside groups like Super PACs supporting them. With Cruz leading the way in hard money, it’s also worth looking at total hauls across hard and soft dollars raised.
According to MarketWatch, which noted Cruz is “killing it when it comes to fundraising,” in total haul Cruz places third in the whole presidential field—and second in the GOP field—right behind Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The MarketWatch story notes Cruz and his outside backers raised a combined $51 million.
Bush’s campaign, the National Journal’s Shane Goldmacher wrote, “is fueled mostly by big donors” and the average donation size to Bush is $926. His campaign raised only $11.4 million compared to Cruz’s $14.3 million, but only 3 percent of Bush’s donations came from donors who gave less than $200.
“Small contributors gave Bush only $368,023, the campaign’s federal filings show,” Goldmacher wrote. “Donors who gave the legal maximum of $2,700 accounted for more than 80 percent of Bush’s total haul.”
Goldmacher then highlighted the difference between Cruz and Bush.
“For comparison’s sake, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz raised $1.8 million from small donors during the first week of his campaign back in March, nearly half of his campaign’s total,” Goldmacher wrote.
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